Li Dan

From WikiLeaks

Since 1985, when China announced its first case of AIDS, the Chinese government has resisted acknowledging the scope of the epidemic. The cost of this resistance has been most obvious in the Henan province, where as many as one million people were exposed to HIV because of unhygienic, government-sanctioned blood selling in the 1990s. Local people, mostly peasants, face the enormous challenge of trying to provide for themselves and their children without adequate assistance from the government and in an atmosphere rife with stigmatization and discrimination. When Li Dan learned about the crisis, he traveled to Henan to see how he could help. Passing up a promising career in astrophysics, Li Dan has devoted his life to fighting for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. He filmed a documentary and shared the footage with the Ministry of Health and journalists, raising awareness both in China and internationally of the situation in Henan. In order to help Henan’s more than 100,000 AIDS orphans, many of whom face rejection by their communities and schools, he opened an AIDS orphanage; but he was later forced by local officials to close it down. After he appeared on a popular news show to discuss the school and the AIDS epidemic, police detained and beat him. Undeterred, Li Dan continues to uncover the story of the destruction caused by China’s AIDS epidemic, putting pressure on the government to respond.